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Ask Chaitanya

March 13, 2016 by Chaitanya 169 Comments

Please write your question in the comment section below.

Questions are an important part of the spiritual journey.

Often,
questions are more valuable than answers.

When the mind becomes quiet,
open,
and free of fixed conclusions,

it begins to resemble what Zen calls
beginner’s mind.

And in beginner’s mind,
all things are possible.

Before awakening,
it is natural to have questions.

You may ask about:

spiritual practice
awakening
Zen
relationships
daily life
or anything else that feels important to you.

One sincere question

can help many people.

Very often,
the question you are asking

is already living
in many other minds and hearts.

We are not as separate
as we appear to be.

If a response is helpful,

it does not come merely
from personal knowledge or belief,

but from openness,
stillness,
and direct looking.

Your question may help others
far more than you realize.

And for that,
I am grateful.

Chaitanya

Read others questions
or ask your own.

Ask a Question

The Perfect Circle

February 28, 2016 by Chaitanya 3 Comments

Spring here in Sedona.
Sunny. 72 degrees.

The almond tree in my garden
is in bloom.
A thousand honey bees
are feeding on it.

The tree feeds them.
They feed the tree.

All of life is like this.
It turns in a perfect circle.

I feed the tree,
so I feed the bees.
And they both feed me.

It is a perfect circle.
There is no need to interfere.
Everything is already provided.

When we think this is not so,
we create mischief, fear, lack and suffering.

When we cannot see this perfect circle,
perhaps we think we need to create some
chemical to meet this imagined lack.

When we do this,
the circle is interrupted.
It is thrown off balance for a moment.

And the ensuing suffering
gives us a chance to see
what we have done,
to stop
and to return to the
prefect circle.

But nowadays
it is hard for us to see,
to listen,
to learn.

We are so busy
not seeing,
not listening,
and only learning
what is not true,
we are so distracted,
that these lessons
take more time.

We only need to
sit silently
and observe.

All this wisdom comes to us.
We don’t have to chase it.

It has always been here,
just waiting for us to receive it.

This is how the perfect circle works.
It has always been like this.
Nothing has changed.
Nothing has ever changed.

You may say
but all matter is
constantly changing
in every moment.
Yes, that is true,
and that changing
is not changing.

It has always been
like this.

The circle has always been here.

Sit silently.
Empty your mind of thoughts
so you can observe.

Listen.

It will tell you.
It will show you.

You have never been apart
from this perfect circe.

Why You Suffer

February 18, 2016 by Chaitanya 7 Comments

Here is a Persian carpet. Now you are looking at the whole carpet. You see the overall design and how it all fits together. But imagine your face was pressed up against the carpet and you could only see a small isolated part of it. Imagine further that you have taken a magnifying glass out or your pocket and you are looking at the small section you now see through the magnifying glass. Now image further that you are looking at that smaller section through a microscope. You are looking only at a section of one individual thread of this entire carpet.

Imagine further that you had never seen the entire carpet as is shown in this picture. Imagine you had only seen this single section of thread. Do you think you could describe the entire carpet and its design from looking only at this single thread? Of course not.

And this is exactly the view we have of life when we are lost in the dream. We have narrowed our focus so greatly that we can no longer see the big picture. We don’t even know the big picture exists except in our imaginations. We use words like God or All That Is or Enlightenment or the Cosmos to describe the big picture. But we don’t see it. All we see is a single thread. And this single thread we call our life, we call reality, we call all that is.

So awakening is simply seeing the whole carpet. We see the single thread. We see all the other threads. We see how the threads all work together to create the whole tapestry. We see all of this. We have a wide perspective. We have taken the blinders off or they have simply fallen off, which is much more likely. And now the entire carpet is available. We recognize what we had previously believed was all of life as only this single little section of thread. Yes, the thread is here too. But in the whole picture it is not nearly as important as we had thought. And also not disconnected from the whole carpet. That little section of thread is intimately linked to the whole thread and all the other threads.

When we experience our life as only this one isolated section of thread of course we suffer. Try as we have, it still really makes no sense. We don’t see the overall design so we can’t see our place in the design either. We don’t admit it to ourselves, but we really feel life is meaningless or we don’t know the meaning of it. We try through reading spiritual books to find some meaning. We even call it the “meaning of life” as if we need to find some Guru to explain it to us. Because it is all we can see, this single section of thread becomes extremely important. We do everything we can to protect it and keep it safe. In doing this we resist the rest of the thread in favor of this one tiny section and we resist the other threads connected to it. We end up terrified of and resisting the carpet itself. You can imagine how well one tiny section of thread of the entire carpet will fare when it resists the very carpet it is part of and one with. Not very well.

And this where suffering comes in. Suffering is the carpet’s way of pointing out the error of this extreme near-sightedness, this extremely narrow and limited view. That’s all it really is. It doesn’t matter what it appears to be to our limited view. Of course that will be distorted. We still can’t see the big picture. If instead of running away and resisting our suffering, we use it to point us back to the bigger picture, to expand our limited view, then we are using it correctly. The point of suffering is not to suffer. What would be the point of that? The point of suffering is to allow it to teach us, to open us, to expand our narrow and limited of view of life and what we are. When we feel we are only a tiny section of a single thread, we will inevitably suffer until we find out what we really are. Notice how the word “thread” and “threat” are only one letter apart. Interesting. What we really are is the whole carpet. The whole complete thing. And if we follow the pointers that suffering is always giving us, we will discover this too.

The carpet is made of threads. Threads like you. Threads like animals, trees and rocks. Threads like planets and solar systems. Threads like energy. Threads that are both form and formless. Nothing is left out of this carpet. And each thread both serves its individual purpose and is the whole entire thing at the same time. You cannot remove a single thread from this carpet and have it be the same carpet. This is why in reality nothing actually dies. But that may be a subject for another time.

Memories and Happiness

January 31, 2016 by Chaitanya 4 Comments

I bought my I-Phone about three years ago. Now my photo library is completely full so I can’t take any more. I never really look at the photos I took so I also never delete any. Today it was time to delete some. Going back over these old photos, memories came up. One thing that every photo had in common was me and the fact that I was very happy. I don’t mean I was in every photo. I mean that when I took each photo I was very happy. That’s why I took it, to try to capture that moment of happiness. So these were kind of like photos of happiness.

There were pictures of beings who I love very much. There were pictures of my cat Zen who I no longer have. There were pictures of my children and family who live on the East Coast far from Sedona. There were pictures of Ahna who I was in a two year relationship with up until a few weeks ago.

Memories

So looking at all these photos brought up memories. Memories of how happy I was when I took each photo, memories of how much I love each of those beings and the other beings in these pictures.

And as I was scanning through each of these photos I was also aware that my body was experiencing symptoms of detoxification from the water fast I was on, which I do three times a year. There was fever, weakness, headache and general uncomfortable feelings, much like the flu. It was worse than it usually is. And unlike most sunny days in Sedona, today was overcast, rainy and cold. I usually begin these fasts in accordance with changing weather and today it was changing.

Sadness

As I looked at these photos of happy times with the beings I love but am no longer physically with and compared that with the present condition of flu symptoms, a cold and rainy day and being quite alone, a feeling of profound sadness arose, a feeling of missing what once was. At that moment I did not experience the happiness I usually do. At that moment, as I looked at these photos, as the memories were triggered, I felt quite alone and distinctly unhappy.

You might have had times when you experienced something similar as you looked over old photo albums, a sense of longing for what once was, a sense of feeling things are not quite as good as they once were when some of those beings you love were still in your life or still alive, or when you were younger. It is quite common for humans to experience this.

The Ego

What may be a little different here is that I know where those thoughts and feelings come from. And I’m very aware of it. They come from the ego. And I also know that the ego is a liar and not to be trusted. The ego is not my friend. The ego doesn’t lie intentionally. It just can’t know truth. This is something most people are not totally aware of. Most people are not even aware of their ego – the little voice in their head that goes by the name of I – or that their ego is not who they are.

If I were not aware of this, I would simply continue suffering. If I were not aware of this I would not be happy.

Because I am aware of the ego, I can listen to these thoughts that create longing for the past and suffering, but I don’t have to believe them. I can instead listen to present awareness. I can listen to truth. And truth tells me this. And this is very important so pay attention.

Presence

In each of those happy moments I attempted to capture in a photo I was certainly very happy. Why I was happy is the important thing. I wasn’t happy because I was with a being I loved or that the day was sunny and warm. I was happy because I was present. I was happy because I was fully alive in that present moment. I was not in the past or future. I was fully present. This is where happiness always comes from. It is the only reason for happiness. We look at the photos and are distracted by the people or places in them. We are distracted by the forms. We cannot see presence. We cannot photograph presence. We cannot even remember presence. It is beyond our thoughts and memories. It is beyond our camera phones. But it is the true cause of all happiness. It’s very important to understand this completely.

I am very, very happy.

So as I looked at these photos that attempted to capture the happiness of that past present moment, I simply left my memory and thoughts of the past, left my ego and returned to this presence that is always right here and now, that can only ever be right here and now. And as soon as I did, what do you think I discovered? Exactly. I am happy. The body is experiencing flu symptoms. It is feverish, weak and achy. These beloved beings are not physically with me right now as they were in the past. And I am very, very happy.

This is a very great and important discovery that I hope you find yourself. It will quite literally transform your entire life. If you want to live awake, this is how you must do it. You must live in truth. And one way to do this to realize what is not true and let that go. The other way is realize what is true and stay in that truth.

Every time you have ever been truly happy in your entire life, it was only because you were fully present in that moment. You may have thought it was because you just got married, won the lottery or your first child was born. This is what the ego says because it cannot know presence. It cannot know the true cause of all happiness. The ego only knows form. When you experience presence without any form to distract you and make you think that’s the cause of your happiness, you will know this truth too. Here is happiness without any cause, without any form. Just presence alone is happiness.

It’s true that certain events can relax your resistance so you can be fully present, but it is the presence not the events that make you happy. When you imagine it is the events you keep chasing these events, not realizing it is the presence alone that is the cause of your happiness. And presence is always here for you. And so is happiness.

Living Awake

When you know this, you will be able to shift your consciousness instantly from unhappiness to happiness no matter what is happening at that time. So here I am, body experiencing flu symptoms, alone, rainy cold weather and yes, I am very, very happy. Always in presence there is this great happiness, peace and love. And another benefit is there is no ego. The ego needs past. It needs continuity. It needs a story. In presence there are none. The past dissolves in presence, just as the ego does.

What else dissolves is the experience of separation. The ego tells me that my cat, my children and Ahna are separate from me. This creates a feeling of missing or longing when they are not physically with me. But presence offers a much different experience. In presence, there is no experience of separation. There is just love. So all the beings I love so much are not separate from me. Even death cannot remove them from me. This is truth. And this is living in truth. This is living awake.

Are You Bargaining With God?

January 26, 2016 by Chaitanya 2 Comments

Is this you? Are you bargaining with God? Are you haggling to keep your identity, your treasured thoughts and beliefs? “I want freedom, peace and love, but I don’t want to lose my treasured identity. I’ve worked too hard to develop it, protect it and improve it. Can’t I have both? Can’t my ego awaken?” The answer is simple. No. This is the bargaining we do that keeps us asleep, that keeps us suffering.

When I speak about surrender, I’ve had students actually say, “Please don’t use that word. I hate that word.” Of course you do. The ego hates that word. Spiritual surrender means total surrender. There are no halfway measures that work. And it means complete surrender of the ego. That’s what awakening really is, a complete surrender of the sense of being a unique separate self. A complete surrender of everything, of you, of the world, of all your ideas and beliefs about God, of everything.

This is what God is trying to sell you: the freedom, peace, love and bliss of Truth. God is trying to sell you God. Not the God of your beliefs, but actually God, the real deal. And God is also trying to get you to realize that you are not separate from this, not separate from anything, even God. There is no separation here except in your mind.

And this is what your bargaining is about. You’re trying to hold on to this limited sense of a separate self and all the suffering that you know comes along with it even if it means you lose out on Nirvana, Heaven, your True Infinite Self, God and freedom from all suffering. What kind of a bargain is that? Are you nuts? No, really? How long are you going to believe those thoughts that tell you the ego can figure it out, the ego can know God, the ego can find a way to awaken and be free of suffering? How has it worked so far? You can study every spiritual book in existence and it’s not going to get you any closer.

What it takes is surrender, complete surrender. This is what God is telling you. This is what your True Infinite Self is telling you. This is what Truth is telling you. Yet you prefer to listen to the voice of the ego again because it’s telling you you don’t have to surrender. It’s telling you surrender is a very bad idea. It’s telling you, you would be nothing without the ego.

Keep bargaining if you want to. Keep haggling. Keep listening to this inner voice of the ego. Keep believing that the price of surrender is just too steep a price to pay for Paradise, for Truth, for God. It’s up to you.

The Missing Key To Self-Love

January 17, 2016 by Chaitanya 5 Comments

Most people do not love themselves.

And yet you cannot really love another until you do. Love between people who do not love themselves is not really love at all, although we often call it that. It’s need. It’s co-dependence. And it’s not surprising that even if those relationships last a lifetime, there are a lot of problems. There are a lot of struggles. There is an entire industry of marriage and family counselors, workshops and self-help books created to fix these problems. The problem is the problem can’t be fixed until the cause is. Patching up symptoms never works for long.

Lack of self-love is the problem.

The cause is lack of self-love. Until this is fixed, there will always be problems. It’s not that people are unaware that lack of self-love is the cause of these problems. There is also a whole industry devoted to helping people love themselves, also with therapists, counselors, workshops and thousands of books. But these really don’t work either. Anyone who has been through this type of help realizes that they may be a little bit better, but they still don’t really love themselves. They still experience ups and downs in their life and their relationships. We accept this as simply being human. But it’s really that we still don’t love ourselves.

There is a reason that all this help with self-love doesn’t really work. It’s missing the key ingredient. And most teachers of self-love don’t really love themselves either. They may be relatively better off than they were before, which is a good thing. And they offer this relatively better off solution to their students. All this is not bad. But it’s still not real self-love. They are still missing the key ingredient.

The Missing Key Ingredient

The missing key ingredient is that even these teachers of self-love don’t really know themselves. Until you know yourself, how can you love yourself? What are you loving? And the answer to that question is your ego. You are simply learning to love your ego more.

Since I love myself, I also love everyone and everything else. That happens naturally when you love yourself. But you have to begin at the beginning. You have to begin with yourself. The ego is not what you are. When you love the ego (and the ego loves that), you are not loving yourself. You are ignoring yourself in favor of your ego. You are abusing yourself. Most teachers of self-love confuse the ego with your true self.

I don’t love my ego. I love myself.

The ego is just a distraction, an illusion created with thoughts. And more importantly the ego is the source of all suffering any of us ever experience in our lives. In fact, it is the only source of any suffering. If you have not directly experienced this yet, then you may not believe me or understand what I am saying. Those who have, and that includes pretty much everyone who has spent any time in the Enlightenment Experience Groups or done Guided Self-Inquiry with me, has experienced not only their true self but that this true self has absolutely no problems ever. It doesn’t matter what the ego experiences. The true self never experiences any suffering and never has.

I love what is true.

I love what is real, what is true, what is. And I love it completely. I don’t love the ego because it is not real. It is created entirely from thoughts. It is not true. And because it is not true, the belief in it creates many problems and a great deal of suffering. Why would I love that? Loving the ego is just more self-abuse. It is not love.

Because most teachers of self-love have not experienced this, they attempt to make the ego more loveable. And in a relative, limited way this can work temporarily. But it is dealing with symptoms, not the cause of the problem. So there will always be ups and downs. There will always be setbacks, not only in the students’ lives, but in the lives of the teachers too. They don’t have the key ingredient. So suffering remains. Real self-love is still not experienced.

When you have real self-love, it doesn’t matter if you are in a relationship or not. You love yourself. That is always enough. You are always complete. Since I am aware that most readers have not experienced real self-love yet, I share certain pointers that may give them a temporary glimpse into what it is like to truly love yourself. These are just things I experience in my daily life. In the last post I talked about flossing your teeth with love. In this one I will discuss washing the dishes.

Washing Dishes With Love

Wash your dishes in the sink. Don’t use the dishwasher. Why would you want to deprive yourself of this great joy? That’s not loving. Enjoy the warmth of the water as it caresses your hands. Pay attention to what is happening in this moment. Is this not exquisite? Look at these amazing bubbles that form when you add soap. See how many there are. Notice the shape of them and the colors you can see in the larger ones. Pay attention. Be present. Enjoy this moment. It will never be exactly the same again. It’s a miracle. Savor it. This is love.

If you wash the dishes in this way you will experience what it is like to truly love yourself. When you love yourself, you love everything. You love everyone. When you truly love yourself, all you see and experience is this great love. You realize that everything in this life is love. Everything in this life is a miracle. You love everything because you are not separate from anything. That is what real love is. This is what real self-love is. It is unconditional love. It is love simply because something exists, and that very existence is love.

You love simply because it exists.

You love your body, not because you identify with it because you don’t. You love your body simply because it is. So eating healthy foods, exercise, yoga, tai chi are really just acts of love. They are not things you do to make the body more beautiful or to improve it. That is just ego. They are simply acts of love.

Do everything as an act of love.

And everything you do in life is now an act of love. Whether it be eating, washing dishes, walking, sleeping, working, it is all an act of pure love because you are love. That is what you love. You love love itself. And love is what you are. That is your true self. When you finally realize this, you finally experience real self-love. And when you do, the entire world will bloom with its true self as love. Because you are not separate, your self-love and the love of the entire world are one and the same.

Maybe you feel this is not for you.

This may sound like a lot to take in. Maybe you feel that this is only for a few people and certainly not for you. Maybe you feel more comfortable with the limited, relative improvements that are offered in the books and workshops. This is more familiar to you. It is less threatening to the ego, which may be quite disturbed by what you have read here.

Start where you are.

I am only pointing you to what you are and have always been. You can begin by doing everything as an act of self-love. Notice how good this feels. Treat yourself well. Treat yourself with love as you would the person you love most in the world. Even the most loving and compassionate healers often don’t treat themselves the way they do their clients. Even the most loving partners don’t treat themselves as well as they do their partners. This is very common. Society has conditioned us to do this. But you are in this picture too. You are totally worth it.

You are totally worth it.

Treat yourself with love. Love yourself as the most beloved one in all existence. This approach is moving from the outside in. But that is the direction you are already in. You see everything as outside of you. Even yourself is still seen as a separate ego self. That too is outside of you. The more you experience love, the more you will be able to experience love as what you are. When you feel this wonderful, your ego will no longer feel so important. Has it ever really given you a feeling of love? Ever? Pride, yes. Arrogance, yes. But love, never. Real self-love is far beyond the reach of the ego.

Develop a habit of love.

Stop doing the things in your life that are not loving. Do more of the things that are truly loving. Be honest with yourself and you will know what these are. Bring an attitude of love to all you do. Turn your attention deeply inward to where this real love is and always has been. Discover yourself and you will love yourself.

This is important so I’ll probably write more about this in later posts.